Have Questions About Addiction? Ask an Addict!

Twenty years ago, I moved back to my hometown, after having been gone for nearly 20 years.  My alcoholic father had been dead for nearly 18 of those years. In those 18 years a relative of mine helped to start a well respected Rehab with Dr. Abraham Twerski.  That relative, lost millions to his addiction. ( To paraphrase the country song  I come from a long line of love, I come from a long line of drunks). This particular rehab had a lot of large roadside ads: Went to ... celebrates 9 years of sobriety...One sign was on the main drag near my home, and was on the way to my daughter's preschool.  For about a year, every time I passed that ad, I thought, If only....If only my dad had gone to rehab... and the rest of that sentence reads like this:  If only my dad had gone to rehab, then my life would have been different in the following ways: I would not have been so sad, I could have had friends over to my house, he would still be alive, I could've shared things with him....the list goes on, and on, and on...

After so much time, I now know, he did not go to rehab.  He could not.  He was an addict, and he faced the truth of his addiction, but he could not make himself go the distance to sobriety.

He was bright and kind and loving.  And he was an addict who never made the jump , the commitment, to sobriety.

Yes, forty years ago, times were so different.  There really were not any 'rehabs' and stigma abounded.

I had to stop the 'what ifs' and learn to love him, and accept that he was an addict.  I had to stop the looping video in which he gets sober and I have a happy life.

I had to reach the point in which I accepted and loved him, addiction and all, I moved on with my life.  I had to realize I could stop the looping video, and I could be happy.

Then along came my AD, and I had to learn to do that same thing all over again.  I am still learning, still trying to figure this addiction thing out.

Honestly, I have no answers.  I just know I cannot, do not have to, stop loving the addicts in my life. I do have to learn to love them, move on, let go.

Thank you for listening.

Posted: 03/24/2016 10:26 PM

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